Evidence: Others Died In Move Fire Police Having Trouble Matching Remains With List Of Residents

July 7, 1985|By United Press International

PHILADELPHIA — More people may have died in the police bombing two months ago of a house where MOVE cult members lived, but conflicting information has hampered scientific conclusions, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today.

The newspaper said what is known is that 11 bodies were recovered from the house that had been the radical group's west Philadelphia headquarters before police flushed some of them out prior to a siege that resulted in a whole block of houses burning down and an estimated $10 million in damage.

However, discrepanies between the information given by MOVE members, particularly from a teen-ager who survived the May 13 bombing, and scientific conclusions, leave the possibility more than 11 people died in the fire and more than two people escaped.

Six of the bodies have been identified. Three children's bodies and two adult bodies have not.

Authorities compiled a list of 25 names of people who could have been in the house. However, information gathered by police about MOVE members may not be accurate.

The medical examiner's office said the bones of a girl about 6 or 7 were found in the house. Yet, none of the names on the children's list is for a girl of that age.

''MOVE members and relatives place a total of three teen-age girls in the MOVE compound the night before police condoned it off,'' the newspaper said. ''Yet, only the bones of a young girl have been found.''

In addition, of the two adult names remaining unaccounted for -- MOVE founder John Africa, 53, and a woman about 35 -- ''neither could explain the bones of a 20-year-old woman,'' the paper said.